


Guns and Dollhouses

by laurlovescookies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Conditioning, F/F, F/M, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Kidnapping, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lotor (Voltron) Being an Asshole, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Murder, Mutual Pining, Organized Crime, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 00:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13869141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurlovescookies/pseuds/laurlovescookies
Summary: Lance McClain is cloistered in the heart of a criminal empire after the kingpin's heir apparent takes interest in him. Raised alongside and wed to his family's executioner, Lance fears for the life of a gentle baker by the name of Hunk Garrett whom falls for him. Hance, dub-con Lancelot. Rated for violence and dark themes.





	Guns and Dollhouses

_I am the Dark One, – the Widower, – the Unconsoled_  
_The Aquitaine Prince whose Tower is destroyed:_  
_My only star is dead,- and my constellated lute_  
_Bears the black Sun of Melancholia._

_In the night of the Tumb, You who comforted me,_  
_Give me back Mount Posillipo and the Italian sea,_  
_The flower that my afflicted heart liked so much_  
_And the treillised vineyard where the grapevine unites with the rose._

_-El Desdichado_

_~*oOo*~_

* * *

 

 _Christmas Eve, Twelve years ago_

  
The last words Lance heard his papa say were said as the man bodily tossed Lance into a closet. "Keep quiet," Papa begged from grit teeth. "For Christ's sakes, keep quiet, sweetheart. He's here."

Staggered, Lance unevenly got to his feet as papa swung the door shut, cloaking him in almost complete blackness, save for the glowing keyhole and the yellow door crack. The toss hadn't hurt; Lance landed in a pile of fallen coats and shoes.

He was too stunned to cry however, and too confused. Whom was he? Santa? Papa said he wouldn't come till Lance was asleep, but perhaps Papa had heard him. Perhaps Santa wouldn't come in unless he thought Lance were upstairs.

Now excited, Lance tried peering through the too-narrow keyhole. He plopped on his belly and looked at his father's stockinged feet pacing around the living room, which was all he could see. The radio was still playing carols, and the fragrance of melting brown sugar and cinnamon wafted promisingly from the kitchen. Lance didn't dare breathe, waiting for a promising thump, looking for a pair of black galoshes to tread into view, accompanied by a warm belly laugh, maybe. Would Santa be angry if Lance came out to meet him? But it'd been okay at the mall, and Lance baked him an entire plate of cookies he'd mostly managed to keep from his Dad's wandering hands.

He drew back slightly, suddenly shy. On the other hand, Lance really had no idea what he'd say to this strange man he was partially frightened of. But maybe he'd let Lance pet the reindeer if he asked. The six year old scrambled to his feet and immediately put his hand on the doorknob.

There was an enormous CRASH, the awful sound of breaking glass, and Lance froze. He dropped back onto his belly at once, looking at his father's feet beside the Christmas tree.

There were footsteps-many of them-and Lance saw a pair of white tennis shoes stride towards his Dad's pajamaed leg. There was an earsplitting CRACK, a roar of pain and Papa went down like a felled tree, his face contorted in agony, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Then, a blur of figures fell over him, hailing down blows on every inch of his body. Papa jolted, instinctively rolling into a ball and shaking hands falling over his head. They beat him harder for that- _whack, whack, whack, whack._

Papa started screaming, and then someone kicked him in the face, sending cracked teeth fragments flying like shooting stars with bloody-black tails. The screams became garbled noises, and still the figures kept striking him. Someone seized the scruff of his neck to strike Papa's bald head against the floor as if it were a particularly hard egg against a bowl rim. Papa's thrashes became slower, and slower, and less, and less, into spastic convulsions.  

_What child is this, who laid to rest_

_On Mary's lap is sleeping?_

_Whom angels greet with anthems sweet_

The radio was still going. The choir's voices suddenly crescendoed, as if determined to drown out the whimpers from the proud, strong mechanic now writhing on the floor. Papa's head lolled to the side, blood liberally streaming from his mouth and nose. One of his eyes was swelling shut, the other warm, dark brown eye streaming tears. On the floor, he stared blankly as the men beat him, eye widening as it met Lance's across the room, through the door-crack. 

Papa let out a noise, and then another man blocked him from view as they worked over him, and the whimpers devolved to garbles, softening.

_While shepherds' watch are keeping?_

At last Papa's feet twitched no more, and then the men-perhaps three or four pairs of feet-paused. The radio continued singing somewhere far away, unaware or uncaring that Papa was bleeding liberally in his own home, an unrecognizable, swollen lump on the floor, surrounded by glass. Some of the shards had been crushed into a glittering white powder from being trodden on by the figures. One of the silhouettes stepped back, said lowly, "That's their cue. Bring the boy inside. Check with Zarkon before you let them in, though."

There were soft noises of assent, and Lance slowly rolled onto his back, only slightly aware of the warmth spreading across the front of his pants. The boy. Bring the boy inside. They meant him, and they would kill him. The tears flooded down his face, and he bit down on his father's jacket sleeve to stop himself from making a noise, though dark, hot hopelessness stunned him.

Creaking footsteps faded, returned. Lance heard, "Here's your shot. This one here." Another pause. "Oh, for Chrissake's, he's ugly but he ain't gonna leap up and bite you. Trust me. You just gotta point at his temple there. It'll be messy, but we've got more clothes for you in the trunk."

"When do I get my present?" A new voice demanded shakily, and Lance tensed, mind sinking someplace very white and very cold. The shivery voice was a young boy's that could belong to any one of his classmates. He rolled onto his side to look under the door again.

A pair of small shoes, small legs. He could see a bit more of the boy then the men; the boy was thin, a bit weedy-looking, perhaps slightly taller than Lance, with very-fair hair. He was frowning down at the beloved body breathing laboriously beneath him, unaware this unextraordinary lump was Lance's entire world.

And in both small hands he held a gun. It must've been heavier then it looked, because his hands shook to hold it steady.

Some of the men chuckled around the boy. One of them, dressed in a long dark coat, with a poinsettia in his buttonhole, stooped to clasp his shoulder. "Like we discussed, after you do your damn job," he said fondly, and everyone chuckled again. "Then you can pick your gift. Any thoughts as to what you want?"

"Better make up your mind fast, because the stores won't be open much longer," piped up one of the figures, looking out at the snow drifting sweetly outside. "And it'd suck to not get your present on Christmas."

"Too true," said the man with the red flower lightly. "Do it."

The boy's brow furrowed, his eyes narrowed. He was clearly pouting, looking martyred, as if being asked to finish a helping of steamed eggplant and cauliflower. Lance's wordless and violently desperate prayers for mercy died however, when an earsplitting BANG echoed through the house, accompanied by the splatter of bone and blood. 

From someplace very, very far up above, Lance saw his father's corpse lying in an expanding puddle of dark scarlet. Now spattered in gore, the boy turned away, pale fact looking on the verge of being sick. The gun was slipping from his hands, and a man took it from him before it could drop. 

The man with the red flower stooped to pick up his young boy with a grunt, patting him on the back as the boy wrapped his sticklike arms around him. "Very good. Very good." 

Someone picked up Papa's hand, let it drop again. "Dead as a doornail. Just like the dog."

Dog. Dog. Someone had killed Lance's dog Blue.

A new figure's legs walked into the room. "Not bad," he remarked lightly, stooping to look at the body. "Especially for a first outing. Checked the upstairs-found a kid's bedroom, but I tore the upstairs apart and no kid."

"Search the rest of the house," the man with the red flower said softly, rocking back and forth on his feet, still holding the boy.

Lance drew back against the wall. Only then did he realize he was still wearing his shoes, the ones he'd begged Papa to buy for his birthday, much to the man's trepidation. They were Velcro, red shoes that glittered like Dorothy's and lit up as you walked or tapped them. Lance had gotten no ending of teasing for their sake at school, and they were confined to home-wear only. 

He realized too late that he'd been anxiously shifting from one foot to the other all this time. Papa had warned the shoes would get him teased, and now, as an eye looked at him through the door, Lance knew they had gotten him killed.

The door was opened. The choir on the radio sang as Lance was dragged out by the arm, scratching helplessly at the iron grip. He sank his teeth into the hand, only to be dislodged with a swift smack. Seeing stars, Lance dangled limply from the grasp as someone asked, "Is this the only one?"

"Checked the basement, kitchen, and office," said a red-haired man as Lance reeled, waiting for it to be over. Maybe his Sunday school teacher was right and there was a heaven. He hoped there was, because he somehow knew instinctively that no amount of screaming would bring anyone in running, certainly not in time. A lump moved up his chest into his throat, swelling, silencing him. 

"Check again."

"If you want, but I triple-checked the papers; McClain fled with just a kid. His wife died and left him with a clusterfuck of doctor bills. That's why he took the money and ran."

A snort. He was dropped to the ground, splayed on the floor on his back like an insect wriggling on a pin. A boot pressed against his stomach in a light but warning weight.

Lance dully stared at it, tears still silently streaming down his face as the strange boy turned to stare at him from his comfortable place in the man with a red flower's hold. The boy's eyes were dark and huge. Somewhere the carols were interrupted by an insurance jingle.

Lance closed his streaming eyes, focusing on his father's face. His mother's. He would take these images with him from beneath closed eyes, and no one would ever take them away from him again, even in the dark. 

"We can't leave no witnesses."

"No. Don't make a scene of it, though. Just reload. Get it over with."

As the radio began playing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman,' Lance silently braced himself, petrified. In a moment, he'd be gone and everything would be fine, forever even. He believed in the Ever After, he believed in the Ever After, he believed in the Ever After.

But just as he'd braced himself to die, he heard a bloodcurdling shriek and his eyes flew open. The boy started writhing and kicking wildly for dear life in his father's arms like a cat hovered over a bath. 

"STOP! STOP RIGHT NOW!" 

The boy in the arms of the man with the red flower was scarcely bigger than Lance, but already spoke with an authoritative air. Lance gaped at him as the boy pointed to him and cried, sounding on the verge of tears, "Don't shoot! That's it! That's what I want! That's my Christmas present!"

And so, without much further ado, Lance was thrown over a man's shoulder, and carried out of the house into the night. They trod past Blue's bleeding body, limp and cold on the porch. It was snowing very faintly, like glitter and it seemed as if the stars were shredding themselves.

* * *

_Present Day_

Lance frequently woke at night. 

When he did, it was usually to an expectant blue darkness, fan blades whirring furiously above the bed like a buzzsaw. Even when he turned them off they'd be on again when he wakened, regardless of whether or not he were sharing the bed. And the vaguely damp-feeling air conditioning blasted continuously at night while Lance burroughed under heavy comforters.

There were two Ambien and a water glass continuously placed on the nightstand even before Lance's incipient insomnia, but he was uncomfortable taking them on the occasions he would bother feeling uncomfortable. 

They were a last resort Lance reserved for nights he'd stuttered awake, smothering in satin and down feathers, in heavy warm arms shaking him, or holding him close to a pounding heart, which was worse.

_Dark, hot terror spiked with hysteria surged through Lance when he saw his childhood die yet again, the culprit murmuring so gently into Lance's hair...stroking his back, with assurances of safety...._

Lance seldom had nightmares, but often awoke to an awful stillness inside that was paralyzing. He looked into it and it looked back. It does it better. Lance's usual solution was to wrap up in an afghan that still smelled faintly of Ann Taylor's _Possibilities._ Then, he'd find a place to sit on the middle of the stairs, beside the refrigerator, or in a neglected crawl space on the third floor of the villa. If the night guard wondered why Lance liked strange and out-of-the-way places to rest, they know better than to comment. 

He sometimes waited out the silence with well-worn, particularly violent or mildly unsettling children's books. Dahl, Sendak, Gorey, Barrie-children's book writers whom never had children, probably because they appreciated their own rotten childhoods too well to impose that on someone else. Reading with a flashlight whenever he huddled in the crawlspace, imagining the tiny room hugging him, Lance's heart desperately went out to the young protagonists and to the children the authors once were. Lance's old soul recognized the children they'd perhaps never stopped being, their old hurts.

Often Lance curled up with religious texts, though he was an atheist. Never the bible; he'd had enough of that as a child, but he thumbed through Rumi, the Tao or The Bhagavad Gita on occasion. These texts advocated the purity of nonbeing, (if indeed the Tao did anything at all) of an inner-stillness. Lance didn't understand how anyone could bear it. This nothingness was supposed to be supreme bliss, the sweetness of surrender. To Lance, nothingness is nothing but terrifying. He wasn't not sure how anyone could enter into enlightenment, into that great nothing that supposedly promised everything and was just deafening silence without their hearts breaking.

Sometimes Lance threw those books against the wall, as he had Anne Frank's diary (he'd apologized to it later; it seemed sacrilegious) and would fall to his side, weeping until he dozed off again. No matter where he hid, he awoke in the same bed and contemplated (somewhat disinterestedly) hanging himself.

On the precious few evenings Lotor is home, he presses wine into his hands, and begs Lance to start drinking. Once Lance had as many as two glasses of wine a night, but he no longer can drink at all. Happier and happier, and then sadder and sadder. A detachment that's a relief, but also a little frightening; Lance's afraid of going someplace underneath and never surfacing again. Better these sleepless nights, which feel real and warm and his, even if they aren't particularly pleasant.

One such night, Lance wakes and manages to persuade a guard to allow him into the yard. It's a lovely, blustery night, and every now and again there's a green-yellow spark from a passing firefly. It's dark, but the darkness outside is safer than the house's. Here he can momentarily pretend he's not being watched, despite the fact he knows damn well there's a guard at his back and the rooftop snipers' eyes fixed on him.

Kicking off his shoes, he walks in swishy warm grass. The trees towering over him bow their heads as he passes.

If there's one thing he can appreciate about the South, (and there are a few, though he'd take that fact to the grave) it's the Charlestonian night air, which is warm and wet and soft, having a molasses-esque sweetness. And in it the perfume of withering jasmine and gardenia floats dreamily. It's a full moon, and Lance's shadow trailed beside him.

He trotted onto the dock, liking the sound of his footsteps on wood as he inhaled the marshy smell. High-tide tonight; maybe even dolphins in the water. He looks for fins over the great, watery distance, though he can't see very well.

"Keep a safe distance, sir."

Lance ignores him. The water tonight is smooth, glasslike. A few stars twinkle faintly in it. He wonders what the water feels like, contemplates rolling over the dock. He'd be fished out in a minute. Perhaps he would not. Water does something strange to Lance-it's frightening, but it also kindles the strange urge to surrender, to immerse himself in it completely. He'd felt the same urge whenever he was very high up, which was rare.

Then again, this was a marsh, and marshes smelled of muck and seaweed and occasionally of rotting fish. He'd wait for a better-smelling body of water to plunge himself in; whatever happened then would happen. He sits down to hug his knees. Mama's afghan is still wrapped around him; he needs to be more careful about using it as to avoid overpowering Elizabeth's smell with his own. They didn't produce Possibilities anymore, regardless of how Lance searched for it, and while Lotor would probably be able to resurface a bottle of it somewhere somehow, it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't smell of her-warm human skin, salt, something citrusy he'd never quite identified.

There's the passing glint from a passing boat. Probably one of Lotor's men, and not someone whom wandered into the wrong harbor at the wrong time. Lance fervently hopes for the first, and presses his brow against his knees.

Lance closes his eyes and sees familiar shapes moving in the murky washing bowl of his subconscious. And again is transported to the night he'd first met his husband.

* * *

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys so much for reading! Reviews and advice (I've never written crime before) would be appreciated. :)


End file.
